I have a problem with my local cable company and I'm curious if others see this too with their cable providers.

Bear with me as I'm not sure how to best describe it but basically the issue is the local cable company inserts local commercials over the top of the normal commercial breaks but they screw up the format of the inserted content and it really messes up my Tivo when I fast forward though commercials because the tv see the change in resolution and tries to adjust. As a result the whole timing gets off, the screen blanks for a moment and if I'm not careful, by the time the video signal returns, the commercials are over, the program has started and I have to rewind to catch what was skipped. This is only a problem is fast forward at the 3x speed, if I ff slower, the video adjusts but of course, it slower to skip the crappy commercials.

The problem is the cable company inserts SD commercials into a HD feed or even the other way around were a weird format is encountered at the fastest forwarding speed.

Is this just my local cable company doing this or does anyone else see it? It's a pain and I sometimes I wonder if they do this just to mess up the Tivo forwarding past commercials, it has gotten to the point we're I dread watching the major commercial laddin channels such as Discovery, AMC; they leave the less popular channels out of their list of channels were they replace the commercials with local ones those I find I watch more as a result but this whole thing has me mad as the primary reason I pay for Tivo is get by without watching commercials.

While I know it's not TiVo's fault, but rather the cable company I'm frustrated that the Tivo can't handle it better and the idea that the cable company might be doing this on purpose.

I have complained to my cable company, they don't deny the problem nor do they really say much about it one way or the other which it either on purpose or they don't understand how to properly format local inserted content so I get no were complaining to them, they are either really dumb or trying to be really clever.

Workround: use 30 second skip and you'll likely not run into the problem.

Yes, I'm mostly joking, but I'm one of those for whom I can get through commercial breaks much faster with 30 second skip (plus a few 8 second backs when I wham it too many times) than 3FF

That's the only thing that gets by with this is using the 30 second skip but I'm creature of habit and have used the fast forward for many years and it irritates me as before this you could figure out the timing and it play at the right time until this started happening.

It doesn't matter the output of the Tivo unless you drop to forced 720i which defeats that whole "HD" idea..... most of the time it's SD commercial in a HD program. The part that makes me upset the most is sometimes I forced to watch a commercial (a local one at that!)

And I know explaining it to my cable company is going to get no were, " you are forcing me to watch commercials" complaint isn't something they really care to fix.

So, the feed actually changes from an 1080i or 720p to a 480i? wow, you have a crappy cable company!

Why cant you just have 720 and up enabled?

Here you go, an example right now, Im watching Speed right now on AMCHD, which is at 1920x1080i @60hz, when a the local commercial breaks in on top of the national commercial, it suddenly switches to 1280 x720 @60hz when as soon as the local commercial is over it goes back to 1080i. My TV senses the mode change and there is a brief blank out until it adjusts regardless of fast forwarding or not. It's just that by fastest - fast forward, the resolution changes too quickly too many times which why the gets so far off.

Formats I have enabled are 720p, 1080i, 1080p (60fps) and 1080p pass thru. Only one I don't have enabled is 480p and per my video output format screen, 480i isn't supported.

Cox has done that for years here, though usually it's 1080i <-> 720p change. VideoRedo doesn't like that and needs the QS Fix video dimension filter turned on to handle it. I have Roamio set to 1080p/60 output only (and 1080p/24 pass through for Netflix & Amazon) now which most of the time works except sometimes with 3x FF the resolution will change and my TV will react to it for a couple of seconds. As Dan203 described in another thread, 1080p/60 is a pretty good single fixed output to choose as it preserves 60 fps for 720p and prevents having the TV have to do further scaling to 1080p/60 itself.

I've never noticed a problem with playing on the TiVo, but sometimes the things the cable company does wreaks havoc on my attempts to save a recording and strip out the commercials. Audio sync problems often abound.

I have this issue with some local rebroadcast channels, on three base Roamios, using HDMI-out (the only choice I have).

The CW stands-out as being the most problematic.

__________________As of 03/13/15I'm going to put all things TCF on ice, or back-burner, for now (could wind up being for the foreseeable future).
I may still post from time to time, until it's just not possible, at all, and might not be able to follow-up/through with posts/PMs.
My time/focus needs to be elsewhere. PMs welcomed, but responses not guaranteed. In need of a miracle.

I have a problem with my local cable company and I'm curious if others see this too with their cable providers.

Bear with me as I'm not sure how to best describe it but basically the issue is the local cable company inserts local commercials over the top of the normal commercial breaks but they screw up the format of the inserted content and it really messes up my Tivo when I fast forward though commercials because the tv see the change in resolution and tries to adjust. As a result the whole timing gets off, the screen blanks for a moment and if I'm not careful, by the time the video signal returns, the commercials are over, the program has started and I have to rewind to catch what was skipped. This is only a problem is fast forward at the 3x speed, if I ff slower, the video adjusts but of course, it slower to skip the crappy commercials.

The problem is the cable company inserts SD commercials into a HD feed or even the other way around were a weird format is encountered at the fastest forwarding speed.

Is this just my local cable company doing this or does anyone else see it? It's a pain and I sometimes I wonder if they do this just to mess up the Tivo forwarding past commercials, it has gotten to the point we're I dread watching the major commercial laddin channels such as Discovery, AMC; they leave the less popular channels out of their list of channels were they replace the commercials with local ones those I find I watch more as a result but this whole thing has me mad as the primary reason I pay for Tivo is get by without watching commercials.

While I know it's not TiVo's fault, but rather the cable company I'm frustrated that the Tivo can't handle it better and the idea that the cable company might be doing this on purpose.

I have complained to my cable company, they don't deny the problem nor do they really say much about it one way or the other which it either on purpose or they don't understand how to properly format local inserted content so I get no were complaining to them, they are either really dumb or trying to be really clever.

Thoughts?

I have the same problem with my cable provider, Service Electric Cablevision. Originally they were broadcasting the commercials in 1080i but if you were watching a 720p channel the resolution changed to 1080i. Also the commercials looked horrible as you could not read any of the writing. I complained about this so they switched the locally produced commercials to 480i so now the resolution changes to 480i on the 720p/1080i channels.
I recently called again so a supervisor told me to call TiVo as he insisted it was a TiVo issue and they could not help me as I do not use their equipment.
He was very hostile and arrogant with me.
I have been suffering through this for almost three years now.

I see this problem on FX even without local ads. As far as I can tell the actual FX (Pacific) feed that my cable company receives has a mix of 1080i and 720p ads. It's not too bad when I'm using 30-second-skip, but my girlfriend insists on using FF and it's a mess. (But at least on my Roamio I don't have to wait for my TV's slow handling of resolution changes, as I have the Roamio set to 1080p output only. On my Series 3 where I had 480p/720p/1080i enabled, it was a real mess.)